EDMONTON — The leader of Alberta’s Opposition NDP says the proposed pay deal for B.C. doctors is a wakeup call to Premier Danielle Smith to stop threatening to take a wrecking ball to Alberta’s health system and to end her embrace of pseudo-science.
Rachel Notley says the pay deal shows the race is on for scarce talent in the health field and that the organizational chaos and anti-science bent of Smith’s government is setting Alberta back.
This week the B.C. government announced a tentative deal that could see a full-time family doctor paid about $385,000 a year — a pay boost of about more than 50 per cent from the current $250,000.
Notley says it’s hard to make direct comparisons, but says the B.C. deal appears to be at least as good if not better than Alberta’s.
Alberta’s United Conservative government has had a fractious relationship with physicians that began almost three years ago when it tore up its master agreement with doctors.
Smith has promised to reorganize health delivery by January, and says health workers will want to come to Alberta because she won’t impose any COVID-19 restrictions and won’t make anyone take a COVID vaccine to come to work.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2022.
The Canadian Press
